The Cricketing Year - 2015

Fantasy Bob has dutifully immersed himself in the reviews of the cricket year that are all pervasive at this time of year.  
He has been stirred by the elated descriptions of the recapturing of the Ashes, the Australian World cup triumph, Scotland’s qualification for the WT20, and Scotland’s women's deeds in Malaysia. 
He has been McCullumed, Broaded, Rooted, Smithed and Hazlewooded until he knows not whether he is coming or going. (Not much change there, FB's long suffering handful of readers will think.) 
He has bid sad and fond farewells to Tyson, Benaud, Rice, Close and many others who paid their final visit to the crease. 
His blood pressure has been raised to danger levels reading about the ICC’s plans to exclude associates from future world cups. 

In all it has been a year full of highs and lows for the cricketer with much to live long in the memory.

Vainly however has he searched those miles of text for a single reference to the most important cricketing story of 2015.  Sadly he concludes that the legions of commentators and bloggers, pundits and analysts, critics and theorists have been guilty of a collective oversight on a grand scale for which there is no explanation.

It is therefore up to FB to correct this failure by calling to notice the heroic achievement of the Carlton 4th XI in winning their league - the highly prestigious Division 7 of the East of Scotland Cricket Association and gaining promotion to the even more prestigious Division 6 of the East of Scotland Cricket Association. 

This was a triumph in adversity in facing down the impossible odds of taking to the field under FB's idiosyncratic version of captaincy.  So incisive was his captaincy that when, after a poor start to the team's campaign in which they lost 3 out of the first 4 fixtures, FB departed on an Italian sojourn, the team unselfishly dedicated a series of 4 consecutive victories to his absent memory.  Not even his return to the helm could undermine their collective momentum and the prize of the league flag was duly grasped with one match to go in the schedule. 

2015's victorious skippers

Readers wishing to understand the full grandeur of this world beating season might wish to review the match reports on the website of the go ahead Edinburgh club.  They should be warned - this material is not for the faint hearted or even those lacking a decent Encyclopaedia.  Readers may struggle to work out why these reports give such prominent mention to Gustav Mahler, Aristotle, BB King, Mary Queen of Scots, Bob Dylan, Richard Strauss, Bertrand Russell, Epictetus, Sir Van Morrison, Walt Whitman, Henry VIII, TS Eliot and the Lady Boys of Bangkok.  What exactly did they do on the field?*

FB sometimes wonders about this too but he guesses that it is just one of the wonders of cricket in 2015.

*FB apologises to those of his handful of readers if some recognise this attempt at a joke from his remarks at the end of season dinner of the go ahead Edinburgh cricket club.  He felt safe in repeating it here for he was sure that none there had stayed awake long enough to hear this passage.